Morning journal and courier., 1887-12-05

8e1t
in use were confagration to destroy the
county building, an event which may happen
in the unprotected state they now stand.
The building is not 80 years old, as stated
in the Sunday Register, but 81, and has had
nothing done Comparatively speaking) to it
for the past 80 years. Had the new county, |
city and town buildings been neglected as 4
the State House has been we leave for an in |
telligent community to say what would be |
their condition now 1t is only few weeks |
since sthe writer saw workmen in |
the employ of Mr.. Rockwell (they said) |
carrying into the new county building heavy |
materials to support parts of its construction
and prevent its falling. The same thing has
been done with the City Hall. We were
aroused this morning with howl from
morning journal, accompanied with what is
called photographs of Chow the old ruin
looks" To the writer's mind these impress
sions speak we'll for the old State House,
showing its great durability. Notwithstand-
| ing thirty-fve years. neglect and the power of
the elements to destroy not one pillar is out
of line as has been proved by experts who
made the examination last Saturday, although
| the Register repeats former assertion
| in explaining it's wood cuts, "the
has been accomplished and is made to appear
| by placing the ''cut" representing the colon
made in leaning position.
| A great hue and cry has been made against
| an outlay for repairs of the State House,
| which means to save valuable room, save
l building and save the cost of new $3.50, 900
structure when the old State House is out of
| the way. Would it not be better for the
| taxpayer to pay 49, 900 for this repair and
| apply the balance for streets, sewers and
| other improvements? Give it to your public
| library. Do with this property as you would
with your own and don't vote until you have
/ examined the building personally.
CITIZEN.
Is the Old state House a Sham2
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
desire to say few words to the public
| in answer to the writer of an article who
signs himself OBJ in your paper of Novem-
Der IL.
The author of this article knows 30 little
about his subject that he proceeds through
| out on the supposition that the State House
is copy of the Parthenon on the Acropolis
| at Athens. This is not true, and SO his blows
fall upon the air and hit nothing. The State
House is not a reproduction, perfect or i'm
perfect, of the Parthenon.
| It is a reproduction of another Greek tenn
| pie at Athens, the Theseum or Temple of
| Theseus, which was not on the Acropolis,
| but on low ground at its base. This is much
| older building than the Parthenon and still
exists. Murray's Greece says of it: "This
| temple is the most perfect architectural relic
of all antiquity. Had Athens preserved to
us nothing but the Theseum it would still
have claimed commence"
| OF this celebrated temple the State House
is a noble reproduction, to my eye even
| grander in effect than the original, for it
stands on lofty foundations, while the These
UNI, with the lapse of ages and the accumu-
| lation of debris around it, is sunk below the
surface and thus loses much of its impress
siveness. It differs, it is true, from the orig
inal in that it has columns only at the ends,
| while the Athenian temple has columns on
all its four sides. But this does not make it
| sham, for many of the noblest of Greek
temples had columns like our State House
| only at the ends. It was a question
| of convenience or of money rather
| than of high art whether it should have col
| umns all around it or not. Having thus
settled with our friend let us ask, second: Is
the State House made a sham by the fact
that it is deficient in strength? No. A great
| many committees of the city council have
examined it and never one has failed to
l port that it was building of unusual
| strength, admirably built and capable with
small repairs of lasting for many generations.
The opinion especially of Prot. Trowbridge,
professor of engineering in Yale and Colum-
bia colleges, should be conclusive on this
point.
Third-It is not made sham by the fact
| that the lower story isl veneered with mar
BILE, and will here insert a short extract
from "Rambles in Rome" by Mr.. Russell
Forbes, an eminent English archaologist, in
trod. page 25. He says: "There it was, IN
der Augustus, that marble was first used by
the Romans. It was his boast that he found
Rome brick and left it marble, which is only
true in certain sense, for he did not build
of solid marble, but cased veneering marble
on to the brickwork." So that the temples
| and baths and public buildings of Rome, the
metropolis of the world, in its most splendid
era, were like our State House, only veneered
| with marble.
Fourth-The State House is not made a
sham by the fact that above the basement it
is faced with stuceo. The writer of the arti-
Gle referred to probably has not known that
/ the most beautiful cities of the world are
built with stucco. Perhaps at the present
moment Vienna is the most splendid city in
the world. The magnificent palaces that
line its bonlevards all are built with stucco.
Pesth, the capital of Hungary, is the same;
Berlin is the same; St. Petersburg the same;
Dresden, Wurtzburg, Stuttgart, Leipsig, in
Germany, are the same; Turin, Bologna,
Naples, Milan, in Italy; Madrid, Lisbon,
Barcelona, Cadiz, Seville, in the Spanish penin-
sula: Nancy, Nantes, Lyons, Brussels, Re-
gent street. the finest street in London, all
are built with stucco. In these cities the
palaces of kings, the residences of the great
| mobiles, the museums and national galleries,
the buildings which line the great CONNER
cial streets are of stucco. There are five
cities in Europe in which other building ma
teriaIs than stucco or ordinary brick are ex-
1 read nnfa
The State House in being faced with stucco
therefore is not sham, but in accordance
with the general fashion of the civilized
/ world.
The State House, then, is not a sham--D
in its model, (2) in its strength, 81 in its mar
BILE basement, ~ in its stucco walls. It has
| an excellent roof. It is therefore not q sham
in any respect whatever, and as the finest
model of Grecian architecture which we have
among US it should be preserved as the glory
OF our city and as an object lesson of classic
beauty to our children.
| Athens alone of all the cities of the world
could build in marble. And whyf Because
solid mountain of the finest marble in the
world was at distance of few miles, Mount
Pentelicus, where was an inexhaustible sup
ply of this costly material at hand and out of
| this marble was built the Parthenon. And
now let me add that this very temple affords
| us valuable object lesson. 1t was built in
the time of Pericles, the greatest of Ath-
enian statesmen, but, alas, the most extrava-
| CANT. Vast sums of money were lavished
| upon it. It is supposed to have cost three
and half millions of dollars. The result
was that the financial resources of the city
were exhausted. It was obliged to impose
heavy contributions on its allies, which led
| them to rebel and go over to the enemy.
Sparta, in the war then raging And few
| years after Athens was captured by the
| mics of its rival and its political supremacy
| in Greece was destroyed. The fall of Athens
i is a lesson not to exceed the resources of
city in artistic extravaganza.
| But our fathers who built the State House
! did not act in this way. While they erected
a building of beautiful design and model,
| they built within their means. Our State
House was built for very moderate sum,
| $50, 900. In thirty years it has cost only
/ 81 200 for repairs. It can be repaired now
for a small sn1n nndar S.s5 600 which xRouId